The Engadget Podcast Ep 14: Welcome to the Terrordome
Trigger warning: This episode in a solid hour of Donald Trump talk.
If you’re still with us, strap in. Dana Wollman, Nathan Ingraham and Devindra Hardawar join host Terrence O’Brien to talk about how social media traps us in echo chambers. The they’ll envision what the world of tech and science looks like under a President Donald Trump. Hint: Things are a little bleak.
The Flame Wars Leaderboard
Wins
Loses
Winning %
Christopher Trout
5
1
.833
Mona Lalwani
3
1
.750
Dana Wollman
10
6
.625
Devindra Hardawar
10
9
.526
Chris Velazco
3
3
.500
Cherlynn Low
6
7
.461
Nathan Ingraham
4
6
.400
Michael Gorman
1
5
.167
Relevant links:
- Under Trump the future of Net Neutrality and broadband is uncertain
- Planet Earth might be the biggest loser under President Trump
- Donald Trump’s ‘Transition Team’ launches GreatAgain.gov
You can check out every episode on The Engadget Podcast page in audio, video and text form for the hearing impaired.
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Facebook disables ‘ethnic affinity’ ads for housing, jobs
Facebook will disable settings that let advertisers exclude racial and ethnic groups when buying ads for housing, employment or credit, the company wrote in a blog post. It first started allowing “ethnic affinity” marketing several years ago, letting advertisers target specific multicultural groups. However, Propublica noticed that it was able to place housing ads that excluded African Americans, Hispanics, and other groups. That caught the eye of the Congressional Black Caucus, which called it a violation of the Fair Housing Act.
After meeting with members of the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucus groups, the company agreed to make some changes. “We will disable the use of ethnic affinity marketing for ads that we identify as offering housing, employment or credit,” VP Erin Egan said. To do that, the social network will use algorithms that detect and disable ethnic affinity marketing for ads in those categories. It will also update its policies to make the rules clearer and require advertiser “to affirm that they will not engage in discriminatory advertising on Facebook.”
To avoid these problems in the future, I urge Facebook and other technology companies to address the lack of diversity in the ranks of their leadership and staff by recruiting and retaining people of color and women.
It appears that the company will still allow ethnic affinity marketing in other ad categories, though. It defended the practice earlier, saying that it “helps brands reach audiences with more relevant advertising.” It’s not unusual, of course, for advertisers to display different ads for the same products in specific TV markets, for instance, or ethnically-targeted magazines.
However, even outside of housing or employment, many critics still find the practice questionable. For instance, Universal created two completely separate ads for the film Straight Outta Compton, then targeted white and African American users separately on Facebook. As Ars Technica put it, the version aimed at white users makes it look like a gangster film, negatively reinforcing cliched stereotypes. Meanwhile, the ad aimed at black Facebook users focuses on the history and personalities of the artists.
Facebook says that “discriminatory advertising has no place on Facebook,” and that it will continue to speak with civil rights groups and policymakers to fight the problem. Black Caucus member Rep. Yvette D. Clarke commended Facebook on the change, but thinks it needs to make a more fundamental shift. “To avoid these problems in the future, I urge Facebook and other technology companies to address the lack of diversity in the ranks of their leadership and staff by recruiting and retaining people of color and women,” she tells Engadget.
Via: USA Today
Source: Facebook
iPhone Supplier Japan Display Seeks Financing Needed to Shift to OLED Displays
iPhone display supplier Japan Display is in “advanced talks” with the government-backed fund Innovation Network Corp. of Japan to receive around ¥75 billion ($703 million) in financing, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The bailout deal could help Japan Display improve its LCD display technology to better compete against OLED displays, while the investment could also go towards trying to set up its own manufacturing lines for mass-producing OLED displays.
Apple is widely expected to launch at least one new iPhone with an OLED display next year, with rumors pointing towards a curved 5.5-inch-or-larger model with glass casing. Japan Display’s domestic rival Sharp recently said it is building a new OLED facility in Japan to manufacture the displays for a “key customer,” while Samsung and LG Display are reportedly in the mix as well.
OLED displays typically have sharper color contrast and brighter colors compared to LCD displays, while the technology allows for flexible, curved designs. OLED panels also typically have faster response times and better viewing angles compared to LCD technology, with the option for an always-on mode. Samsung smartphones have used AMOLED displays, based on OLED technology, for years.
Rumors suggest Apple will release at least two traditional 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone models with LCD displays next year, as it has used since the original iPhone in 2007, so Japan Display may still have time to ramp up its OLED efforts.
INCJ already owns a controlling 36% stake in Japan Display, a joint venture formed in 2012 by the display making divisions of Hitachi, Sony, and Toshiba. Japan Display has struggled as of late due to the rise of OLED, with its revenue in the July-September quarter declining 25%. The company posted a quarterly net loss of ¥4.9 billion, but it projects a small operating profit for the full fiscal year.
Sharp received a similar financial infusion when it was acquired by Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn for $3.5 billion earlier this year.
Tags: OLED, Japan Display
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Zuckerberg says Facebook didn’t influence the election
If you controlled a media publishing platform that connected to millions of people, it’d make you a pretty powerful individual. Not so, according to Mark Zuckerberg, who has come out against the notion that Facebook helped win it for Trump. TechCrunch reports that the CEO was challenged about his social network’s laissez-faire policy towards stopping the flood of fake, bubble-reinforcing propaganda. He thinks that the notion that the torrent of fabricated stories “influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea.”
Zuckerberg believes that it’s wrong to suggest that the diet of false stories, much of it generated in Macedonia, influenced things. Instead, he said that “voters make decisions based on their lived experience,” and that you “don’t generally go wrong when you trust that people understand what they care about.” In addition, the Zuck says that the company studies fake news and analyzes how it can be improved, and feels that fake stories aren’t much of a problem. In the same breath, the company is also pledging to do more to tackle fake news in the future.
The Facebook chief also said that the problem isn’t to do with the news feed, or people’s social networks at all, but the level of engagement. He added that “the biggest filter in the system is not that the content isn’t there,” but that “you just tune it out when you see it.” That’s at odds with what Facebook said last year, too, when it said that if you were only seeing self-reinforcing stories, its because your friend circle wasn’t diverse enough.
Source: TechCrunch
Instagram chief confirms live video is coming to the platform
Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom has confirmed to The Financial Times that the Facebook-owned company is bringing live videos to the photo-sharing app. Systrom said in the interview: “Live is really exciting for us. I think it can enhance what we’re doing. If I’m trying to strengthen relationships with someone I love, them streaming video to me live would be an amazing way to be closer to them.” The feature first surfaced last month as an experimental offering in Russia, where some users spotted an icon clearly marked “Live” next to a row of Instagram Stories.
Based on the screenshots posted by Russian publication T Journal, it’ll work similarly to Facebook Live. If you want to broadcast anything, you’ll have to fire up the camera and click “Go Insta!” Unfortunately, the users who got access to the experimental feature weren’t able to find out more than that, since clicking the icon marked “Live” brought them to an empty “popular live broadcasts” page. You might also have to a while before being able to find out yourself: Systrom didn’t exactly say when the feature will become available.
Via: Pocket-Lint
Source: The Financial Times (paywall)
Live eSports! In VR! On your face!
ESL and Sliver.tv are teaming up for the first ever eSports VR livestream of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) and League of Legends during Intel’s Extreme Masters Oakland tournament next week (November 19th and 20th). The coverage will be available on nearly every mobile and PC platform, including Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Gear VR and others. It’ll drop you into the middle of the action with a 360-degree birds-eye view and first-person player perspectives, in the case of Counter-Strike.
Viewers will also see real-time stats like kills with different weapons and multi-kill streaks by player and round. “Having a real-time, in-depth look at everything that happens in a CS:GO match is … only possible in a VR environment,” says ESL Product Manager Stuart Ewen.
Having watched highlights from the ESL One New York CS:GO tournament on a Gear VR, I can confirm that it’s an easy and immersive way to follow the action compared to a regular stream. It did choke sometimes and drop to a lower resolution on my Galaxy S6 Edge, despite the fact that I have a 1 Gbps fiber connection. That may be down to a previous-gen smartphone and the fact that I’m in France, but obviously you’ll need an excellent connection to tune it at any kind of a decent resolution.
Sliver.tv is a pretty new startup and isn’t the only company doing VR streaming, but as Techcrunch notes, it made the canny decision to focus on big eSports titles like Dota 2, CS:GO and League of Legends. That’s helping it to gain notoriety, as those three titles alone have around 140 million fans.
If you have a VR headset and are interested in tuning in, you can get the best experience by downloading the Gear VR, Oculus Rift, or HTC Vive apps. You can also download the iOS and Android apps to watch in mobile Panorama 360 or use Google Cardboard.
New Filing Confirms Yahoo Was Aware of Large-Scale Email Hack in 2014
In September, Yahoo confirmed that at least 500 million of its users’ accounts had been compromised during an attack in late 2014. Now, in a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it was revealed that the company knew about the hack when it originally happened in 2014, but waited two years to divulge it to the public (via TechCrunch)
Describing the investigation, the new SEC filing notes a “state-sponsored actor” who gained access to the company’s network in late 2014, along with Yahoo’s awareness and identification of the individual in question during the same time period. Information stolen included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords, and encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers.
In late July 2016, a hacker claimed to have obtained certain Yahoo user data. After investigating this claim with the assistance of an outside forensic expert, the Company could not substantiate the hacker’s claim. Following this investigation, the Company intensified an ongoing broader review of the Company’s network and data security, including a review of prior access to the Company’s network by a state-sponsored actor that the Company had identified in late 2014. Based on further investigation with an outside forensic expert, the Company disclosed the Security Incident on September 22, 2016, and began notifying potentially affected users, regulators, and other stakeholders.
Now a board made up of independent counsel and a forensic expert is said to be investigating “the scope of knowledge within the company in 2014,” as well as Yahoo’s basic security measures and related incidents. The filing describes $1 million in losses for Yahoo relating to the security breach so far.
Additionally, Yahoo said that 23 class action lawsuits have been filed against the company by consumers targeted by the security breach in 2014, in both federal and state courts, as well as foreign courts. Plaintiffs in the cases claim to have been “harmed by the company’s alleged actions and/or omissions” relating to the hack. The scope and monetary damages sought by each consumer was not divulged.
In attempts to move past the incident, Yahoo is cooperating with federal, state, and foreign governments and agencies who are investigating the hack. The biggest blowback for Yahoo might still be in its planned sale to Verizon, the latter company now asking for a $1 billion discount due to Yahoo’s current turbulent drama with the news of the 2014 hack.
Tag: Yahoo
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How to enable two-step verification on WhatsApp
It’s time to secure your WhatsApp account.
WhatsApp rolled out two-step verification on its platform, giving users the ability to secure their accounts with a passcode. The service relies on an SMS confirmation whenever you set it up on a new phone, and the new measure provides an added layer of security. Given the relative ease with which you can set it up and the added security benefits, there’s no reason not to create a passcode for your WhatsApp account.
How to enable two-step verification on WhatsApp
Open WhatsApp from the app drawer or the home screen.
Tap the menu icon in the top right corner.
Go to Settings.
Select Account.
Select Two-step verification.
In the setup window, tap Enable.
Enter your six-digit passcode and hit Next. Confirm your password.
Enter your recovery email address and hit Next. WhatsApp won’t verify your address, so ensure you provide a valid email ID.
You’ll see a message that says Two-step verification is now enabled. Hit Done.
That’s it! Your WhatsApp account is now much more secure. You’ll get periodic reminders to enter your passcode so you don’t forget it, and in the unlikely event that you do, you’ll be able to use your email address to disable the feature.
WhatsApp took a huge step toward ensuring its users’ privacy earlier this year by making all conversations end-to-end encrypted by default, and given the service has over 1 billion users, that is a big deal. The platform has also seen a constant stream of feature additions this year, including the rollout of a desktop client, introduction of voice calls, improvements to group chats, video calling, and GIF support.
New features make their way to the beta channel weeks (often months) before they’re rolled out widely, and if you’re interested in getting a first look at upcoming additions, you should consider signing up for WhatsApp beta on Android.
Leica SL shootout: Four photographers test out the full-frame mirrorless system
”Remember, remember the fifth of November”. And not because of gunpowder, treason and plot. But because an explosive Leica Akademie workshop took place, which was attended by winners of a Pocket-lint competition for the chance to get their hands on the latest Leica SL full-frame mirrorless camera under expert instruction.
The workshop, led by Leica Akademie tutor, Robin Sinha, was based around photographing the Regent Street Motor Show in London. The show, which has been running for 120 years, sees the capital’s iconic street shut to traffic, to make room for traffic of a whole other kind: vintage cars aplenty are on display, as are their owners, adorned with attire of the era.
It’s the perfect place to go shooting street photography, without feeling too exposed yourself. So many eye-catching subjects make it easier to sleuth around and find those perfect decisive moments.
Nick Board
With Leica SL in hand, complete with 24-90mm f/2.8-4 lens to be able to zoom in on the action as needed, our four attendee photographers – Nick Board, Peter Ramsay, Siraj Yusuf, and Nicholas Redhead – went exploring solo for a couple of hours in the brisk cold to see just what they could achieve with the camera.
First, a little foresight about what the Leica SL is all about. As a brand new Leica system, revealed in 2015, the SL was the world’s first full-frame mirrorless camera to market, showing the German company’s progressive view towards new technologies.
Among those is the EyeRes viewfinder, a 4.4-million dot electronic viewfinder that is higher-resolution than anything else you’ll find on the market today. It’s about as close to a traditional optical viewfinder as you can get, plus it brings the benefit of various electronic overlays and details during shooting – if you want them.
Shooting in among a sea of spectators on Regent Street posed a challenge, but also as an opportunity. The various bodies became useful for framing, say for obscuring part of the frame to highlight the intended subject, and with eyes pressed to finders the world feels shut away, out of sight.
Peter Ramsay
Not that it’s all about the viewfinder. The SL’s autofocus system can be commanded by simply pressing a finger on the camera’s rear touchscreen, or by using the rear toggle control to manually position it. Pair that with an autofocus system with 529 spot positions and the world, as they say, is your oyster.
And make no bones about it: the SL is super-quick to snap subjects into focus, whether in single autofocus for still subjects, or continuous autofocus for moving ones – which is handy when people are so prone to moving or suddenly spotting that they’re being photographed.
Burst shooting became another useful tool. The SL is capable of shooting at up to 11 frames per second – yep, eleven – at its full 24-megapixel resolution, which is on par with the pro cameras that you’ll see used at the Olympics. Snapping a subject on repeat in this way will glean those in-between moments and give more options to source the one that’s the pick of the bunch. It’ll make a bit more noise whilst doing so, too, but as cameras go the SL’s shutter is subdued in the best possible way.
Nicholas Redhead
And when let loose, the most interesting thing to come from the workshop was the way the four different photographers saw their surroundings. Some went fully abstract, using depth and colour to create painterly-like images. Nicholas Redhead’s example is a great one.
Others went more traditional, waiting patiently and hunting out those special moments – be it the suggestive signage next to some passers by implying its own story, or simply catching a reflective moment. Peter Ramsay’s photograph of gentleman with two balloons fixed in a moment of thought is one such example – a quiet moment extracted from the madness.
Or if (like this particular author) the cars and people became a little bit too much, then sticking the SL into monochrome and snapping a trio of dogs patiently waiting for their owner was too good an opportunity to miss. Good lads.
Mike Lowe
It was an exciting, educational and social Akademie Workshop. And very fitting that Leica, a company whose cameras are synonymous with street photography the world over, can demonstrate that even its latest, most technological kit is also up to the job, not just the manual focus style of the famous M-series.
If all that sounds like your cup of tea then Leica is running a complimentary Leica SL Taster on 7 December 2016, plus many other workshops run year-round from its Mayfair base.
Nintendo’s mini NES is out today
You may want to ready your wallets and your mouse-clicking fingers for the NES Classic’s launch today. Some fans who attended the midnight event at Nintendo’s New York offices were already able to get one, but don’t worry: you can grab your own from several retailers. Amazon, for one, has sent out emails informing customers that it’ll start selling the retro-console in “very limited quantities” starting at 2PM PT/5PM ET later. The online shopping giant warns that it expects demands to be high and that “there’s no guarantee that it will remain in stock for long.” If you’re looking to buy from Amazon, make sure to bookmark the device’s page and set an alarm.
Amazon isn’t the only place where you can grab a NES Classic, though. Best Buy and Target have product pages up and running, but both websites indicate that you can only get a unit in store. You’ll have to go to one of the big-box stores’ locations to actually buy the device. GameStop’s website wouldn’t let us put one in our virtual cart either, but you can try ringing up a brick-and-mortar outlet to ask if they have any for sale. In the UK, stores have little to no stock and marketplace sellers are already offering the console at more than double its recommended retail price.
The NES Classic is a tiny version of the old console we’re sure a lot of you played as kids. It comes pre-loaded with 30 games, including several Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy and Zelda titles. And, yes, you can save so you can pick up where you left off later. The console will set you back $60/£50, but since it only comes bundled with one controller and you can buy another separately, you may have end up spending a bit more money than that.
AIVAnet 